


TELEPORT

by Mikkeneko



Series: Caleb's Copendium of Kisses [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Romantic Fluff, Short & Sweet, The Xhorhaus, baby's first widojest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 22:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18860209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: Xhorhas isn't so bad, but Jester is a long way from home and some days she feels it more than others. Caleb hopes that he can help with that.





	TELEPORT

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've ever tried writing Widojest, so I hope it comes off well!

  
She still hasn't quite decided what to paint on the walls of her room. She wants to do everybody's bedrooms sooner or later -- so much wall space! -- but aside from Yasha, it's hard to think of what's right for every person. So far one corner of her and Beau's room is a riot of jungle plants like that one island with the temple, including the totally rad plants that made you high (she included a possum eating the fruit and getting googly eyed, so you'd know.) Then she changed her mind and did wildflowers like Yasha's, then a pretty meadow, then just fluffy clouds and sky, which then turn the corner into a seascape sunset. She'd gotten a few feet along the wall before she realized it was turning into the view of the ocean from Nicodranas as seen from the roof of her mama's house.

Then she'd put the paints down and had a little cry. So long as nobody sees it it's fine, right?

A knock on her door heralds a familiar voice. "Jester? Do you have some time?" Caleb's voice comes through the door, a little blurred by the wood and his soft accent.

Jester hops off the bed, quickly scrubbing her face of the last evidence of tears, grabbing a brush and quickly dipping it in paint to make it look like she was doing more painting than she really was. Crossing the door she opens it with a smile, leaning against the doorframe casually as she says "What's up, Cay-leb?"

Caleb stands in the hall outside her room, hands shoved into the pockets of his coat. His new coat, the nice fancy purple one, not the ratty old brown coat he wore for so long. It looks great on him, Jester can't help but notice, nicely framing his shoulders and his waist while the collar puts his neck and face on display.

It's still a bit startling to see him clean-faced, clean-shaven, without even the stubble let alone the beard. It makes him look so much _younger_ , less like the patrons who visited the Chateau and more like the handsome young men on the covers of her novels. Even more so when he smiles like he does now, his eyes dancing a bit when he looks over her paint-spattered apron. "Are you in the middle of anything?" he asks. "I have... something that I'd like to show you, but it may take a while. I don't want to interrupt anything important."

"Sure. I'm just messing around really," Jester says, and sets the paintbrush back in the watering can. She'll clean it up later. "What are you going to show me?"

That little smile grows wider. "It's a surprise."

"Oooh, I love surprises!" she exclaims, quickly pulling the apron over her head and tossing it in the corner. She grabs her shoes and hops on one foot a moment as she pulls the first on, then the second.

"Ja, I hope you will love this one," Caleb says. He steps back from her doorway and holds out a hand; grinning delightedly, she gives him her hand and lets him lead her down the hallway. "Before we start, you should put on a disguise," he says as they go down the stairs.

Jester is immediately intrigued. "Are we going to infiltrate somewhere?" she says.

"Sort of," he says, cagier than normal. "You'll see."

She decides to humor him and takes a few moments to think of a good disguise. She decides to go with the outfit she made up for blending in in Xhorhas, except this time she also changes her skin from blue to pink. Her hair, after some deliberation, she decides to make white. There's a mirror at the end of the hallway by the stairway and she stops to fuss over her reflection in it, making a few tweaks while Caleb waits patiently behind her. "Are you going to wear a disguise, too?" she asks once she's satisfied.

"No, I don't think that will be necessary for what we're doing," he says.

Jester pouts a little at him. "But we could be twins again," she says. Come to think of it, she'd really like to see Caleb with pink skin and white hair.

"I'd like to save my energy for the time being," he says. "If I have some magic left after we're done, then maybe."

That of course intrigues her even more; what kind of _surprise_ is Caleb planning that has the potential to use up all his magic? She follows him downstairs into the little basement room that he's claimed as a work lab. It's perfectly neat and tidy as always, but this time there's a broad circle chalked on the smooth flooring. Sigils flow around the outside edge that she can't read even when she tilts her head nearly upside down.

Caleb ushers her into the center of the circle and then steps back, releasing her hand. "All right, now close your eyes," he instructs her.

"Okay!" Jester says, and clamps them theatrically shut.

Of course, she cracks one eye open and sees him go to the workbench, rummaging over some things in little drawers. Without turning around he says, "And I mean _really_ close them, no peeking."

"But how do I know you're not going to put slime in my pocket or fill my hands with frogs or dye my hair funny colors?" Jester asks.

"Would you like me to do that?"

Honestly? "Yeah! That'd be cool!" Caleb has always been the sort of person that pranks are played _on_ , not played _with_. It might be a lot of fun if he'd let himself go for once, follow the Traveler for a while.

Caleb chuckles. "I think that sort of thing is more your speed than mine Jester. Please, just be patient."

Jester sighs. "That's _definitely_ more your speed than mine," she grumbles. "But fiiiine. This had better be a really good surprise though."

She closes her eyes properly this time. She can still hear Caleb moving around the lab, picking things up and setting them down again, and he begins murmuring an invocation under his breath. His voice rises and falls and while she doesn't understand the words he's speaking it sounds nice. Smooth and sonorous, warm and powerful. The chanting voice comes closer as Caleb presumably steps into the circle with her, and --

Jester is so distracted by Caleb's voice that she doesn't realize he's reaching the end of his invocation until it abruptly cuts off. There's a sudden wrench like the feeling when you're asleep and dream of falling and wake up kicking, and a moment of dizziness. The dim light of the workshop is suddenly replaced by bright, blaring light and Jester's eyes squinch harder in response. "What?!"

"There," Caleb's voice comes from behind her, close by, less than a foot away from her ear. "Now you can open your eyes."

"I can't, it's too bright!" she complains, rubbing her hands over her watering eyes. Behind her, Caleb chuckles.

"Take your time," he says.

It's not just the light that's changed, she realizes. The ground underfoot grates like gravel instead of the smooth flagstones of the basement. A soft breeze is blowing around them, carrying sounds that echo from much further away and a scent that is tantalizingly familiar. Gradually the dazzling brightness becomes bearable and Jester opens her eyes. And gasps.

She's standing on a cliff, less than a meter away from the edge of the bluff that overlooks Nicodranas. The shoreline spreads away to the north, waves appearing as blue wrinkles from this distance, with pinprick specks of seabirds wheeling among the clouds and little toy-boat silhouettes gliding along the horizon. To the south and west the city spreads away below them, rising from the flat grey wharfs and warehouses at the dock up to the buildings and towers of the town proper. Silver roads knife through the grumbled brown of the buildings, decorated with the occasional flash of green from the city's little parks.

And if the Open Quay is there, and the highway is... _there_ , then that means her mother's house from here is...

"Caleb!" Her voice escapes her in a shout with the force of her excitement. She takes a swift step towards the cliff edge before hanging back. "Is this real? I mean are we really here?? It's not an illusion or something is it?"

"Nein, we are really here," Caleb says, smiling. Then the smile fades and his eyebrows do that _thing_ again as he looks over the city, then up and down the bluff. "Well... this is not exactly where I wanted us to end up. I was aiming to put us down directly outside of your mother's house. I must have messed up the calculations somehow, my notes warned me this could happen but I thought I remembered --"

 _"Caleb!"_ She can't contain her giddiness; she rushes over to him and grabs him in a hug, picking him off his feet and twirling them both in a circle before she puts him down. He's heavier than he used to be, but in her excitement she doesn't even feel the extra weight. "I can't believe it! I'm home! I'm home. Oh my God!" she gasps, plopping him back on his feet and holding him at arms length as she looks at him wide-eyed. "Did we leave the others behind? How are we going to get back??"

"Getting back is much easier," Caleb reassures her. "I can't cast the spell again _today_ , but I can take us back tomorrow. I have memorized the teleportation circle there, so getting back will be no problem. It is not necessarily a trip we can make every day, but any time you want to come back..."

"Oh my god!" Jester repeats. She runs back to the edge of the cliff, her eyes drinking in the vista before her. The clouds stretch away to the silver horizon, their tops towering white and fluffy as cotton candy, their undersides grey and flat as though they were sitting on a pane of glass. Yes, clouds like that, like that she hadn't seen anywhere else since they left the coast. The breeze carries in the smell and it's just right, fresh rain and sea salt and just a little bite of sour rot coming up from the harbor. And she was right, she can see her mother's house from here, the pristine building with the kept-up walls and painted eaves standing out from the shabbier buildings that surround it. It's so close she feels like she could throw a rock from here and hit the balcony, so close that just a few minutes' walk through the town will bring her _home_.

As she stares, her eyes wide and hungry as they devour the view, Caleb comes up behind her. "I ah... I wanted to do this for you... because I know that what I did, in the throne room, I know that what I did will make it harder for you to see your father, now," he says quietly, and Jester can't help but feel a pang of sympathy to the sadness and guilt in his voice. Sure she'd been mad, but she hadn't _really_ meant it when she'd yelled at him then. She hadn't realized he was still thinking about it.

She looks over at Caleb and he's looking back at her, his face so earnest, his eyes as blue as the sea under the open sky. "At the least, I wanted to make it easier for you to see your mother," he says. "I promised you once, back on the ship, that I would get you home. And I meant it. I will always get you home."

Her heart swells and breaks like a wave crashing, and Jester feels her eyes begin to sting. "Caleb..." she says, sniffling. "This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

"O-oh?" he says, and a faint red flush suffuses his cheeks. "It is the least I could do."

"It's _not_ ," she insists vehemently.

He starts to protest, so she puts a hand over his mouth. Her disguised-pink skin is almost the same color as his blush, she notices, and she kind of likes the color. The blush would probably look even prettier contrasted against her real skin color.

"You know, Caleb," she says at last. "When I left home the first time... the reason I was looking for my dad wasn't actually because I really wanted to see him _that_ much. It was because I'd lost my home and I didn't know where to go, or what to do, and I was scared that if I couldn't find my father I'd have no one. I thought I'd never have a home again, but I was wrong."

Caleb smiles, reaches up and takes her hand, pulling her fingers away from his mouth and enfolding them in his own. "Yes, you were able to return to Nicodranas," he says.

"No, silly, not Nicodranas. I met all of _you_ ," Jester corrects him. "Beau and Fjord and you and Nott and Molly and Yasha and Caduceus -- and, and Frumpkin and Sprinkle -- I know now that no matter what happens, I don't need to worry about being alone ever again."

He looks at her, eyes wide and so, so blue. She puts her free hand on his chest, the tips of her fingers just brushing the skin over his collar. "My home isn't down there, Caleb," she says softly. "It's here."

The sun is setting over Nicodranas, sending long spears of golden light underneath the clouds to strike against the bluff. They land on Caleb and set his red hair aflame, gild his skin, make his eyes glow. Below the bluff gulls circle and call, the wind blows her skirts out away from the cliff, and it's all so exactly like the cover of one of her romances that there's really only one thing for Caleb to do.

And he does. He leans forward and his eyes slide shut, lips parting, and she throws her arms around him to pull him into a kiss.

 

 

* * *

 

 

~end.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Teleport**  
>  This spell transports you and up to eight willing creatures of your choice that you can see within range, or a single object that you can see within range, to a destination you select. If you target an object, it must be able to fit entirely inside a 10-foot cube, and it can't be held or carried by an unwilling creature. The destination you choose must be known to you, and it must be on the same plane of existence as you. Your familiarity with the destination determines whether you arrive there successfully. The DM rolls d100 and consults the table.
> 
> Familiarity - Mishap - Similar Area - Off Target - On Target  
> Permanent Circle - x - x - x - 01-100  
> Associated Object - x - x - x - 01-100  
> Very Familiar - 01-05 - 06-13 - 14-24 - 25-100  
> Seen Casually - 01-33 - 34-43 - 44-53 - 54-100  
> Viewed Once - 01-43 - 44-53 - 54-73 - 74-100  
> Description - 01-43 - 44-53 - 54-73 - 74-100  
> False Description - 01-50 - 51-100 - x - x
> 
> Since Caleb has been to Nicodranas twice, and because of his excellent memory, I decided to give him Very Familiar status with Nicodranas; so even if he rolled poorly on his Teleport he would still manage to get them pretty close. And of course the more often they visit, the better his accuracy would be.


End file.
